


Stegosaurs & Radiators

by MonoclePony



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Awkward Romance, Dinosaurs, Fluff, Humour, M/M, Snk MiniBang, TA Jean, dinosaur nerd au, established jearmin, museum worker!Marco, parent!Jearmin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-02
Updated: 2016-09-02
Packaged: 2018-08-12 16:07:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7940767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MonoclePony/pseuds/MonoclePony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eren doesn’t know why he gets dragged along to help at his friend’s kid’s school trip to Trost museum (and Jean Kirschtein isn’t going to be much of a friend after this hell). After all, he doesn’t like museums (he swears). Or kids (he pretends). Or socialising before midday (he’s certain). But when he spots the resident prehistory expert, he thinks that maybe museums might be his thing after all. Marco Bodt is handsome, he’s clever and he’s SO out of Eren’s league.<br/>He also loves dinosaurs – REALLY loves dinosaurs.</p><p>Unfortunately, Eren decides to tell said dinosaur lover that he likes them too, and unfortunately, Eren Jaeger knows shit about anything remotely scaly…or feathery, as the case may be. And he finds out the hard way that Jurassic Park is not historically accurate, but Marco’s smiles could quite possibly take up a few hours of his time.</p><p>A fic with fluff, humour, secondhand embarrassment, jearmin trying to make eremarco happen, geekery and an abundance of dinosaur facts.<br/>------<br/>An AU written for the snk minibang 2016.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stegosaurs & Radiators

One thing was certain: he was going to kill Jean Kirschtein.

It wasn’t that Eren Jaeger didn’t like kids. As his friends constantly reminded him, he was the kind of person who never grew up. Eren was the Peter Pan of them all; his apartment was cluttered but well-loved and humble, he hadn’t held down a proper relationship since university and his idea of a good night was the same old club, same old alcohol, same old traffic cone trophy. Eren knew what worked, and that was his comfort. Children just sort of… noticed that breed of immaturity and flocked to it.

It did not mean, however, that Eren wanted to be towing six bored eight year olds around Trost museum on his day off work, when there was an entire library of possibility groaning at him from his Netflix account back home. It was a bargain, he reminded himself as he yanked a child away from a rather dainty looking Dynasty vase. He was going to help Jean with cover for his class’s school trip, and Jean would cook him dinner. Despite it all, Eren was starting to feel that nothing would make up for this.

“Mr Jaeger, Mr Jaeger!” one of the children crowed, causing Eren’s neck to nearly break with how sharply it snapped around. “Can we touch it?”

Eren fought down the urge to scream. “Does it look like you can?”

“No.”

“Then what do you think?”

“…no?”

“Exactly.”

God, Jean could keep his fucking lasagne.

The only kid he wasn’t hoping to abandon somewhere in the depths of the museum was Maxie, Jean and Armin’s blonde haired, blue eyed demon spawn. He was walking around, sticking close, keeping his hands to himself. Thanks to Armin working in said museum, Maxie had an innate respect for anything older than him. Unfortunately, the courtesy didn’t extend to Eren himself. That was partly why Eren liked him – Maxie was a kid who gave and took no bullshit. He was going to go far.

“Eren, we’re meant to be doing worksheets,” he piped up, his brows drawing together like his father’s as they turned the corner. Armin always had this way of judging Eren’s actions with just his eyebrows, and his son had the same neat little trick. Joy.

“What about?” Eren asked, peering at some kind of Greek jug shard with naked men running on it. Greeks. So saucy.

Maxie squinted at the shard and then back to Eren. “Everything,” he said. “Nothing here though. We’re in pottery.”

“Right...”

“We need natural history.”

“Yippee.”

Eren hadn’t been to the museum since he was a kid himself, and as he walked around he noticed that little had changed. The building itself was the only one in Trost that looked like it was meant to be there; it loomed out of the dull, cement and chrome skyline like an apologetically ugly relative, complete with statues of the elite perched on the very top of its structure. They looked just as unimpressed with Eren as they always had, too. The indoors held varying shades of brown for the most part, with a few wild attempts to drag the place into the correct age with minimal fuss. Eren felt like he was walking through a sepia photograph – at times, it smelt like he was, too.

The pottery section finished at the base of a staircase, and Eren paused – _was this the right way? Probably_ – before leading them up. The kids kept firing questions at him that he kept deflecting with grunts until it was impossible to shut them up.

“What?” he said on the eighteenth ‘Mr Jaeger’ he’d heard. Not that he’d been counting. He was planning to call it collateral for Jean’s IOU.

“Do you even _know_ much about history?”

Eren rounded on them, the glare already playing across his face. “Yes, I do.”

“Then why aren’t you a teacher? Or a helper like Mr Kirschtein?” another asked.

 _Because I didn’t want to be babysitting you little shits all day,_ was the answer begging to be screeched out at them. Eren held back – just. “Just do your worksheet,” he muttered, turning back to the main room. He paused. Huh. This wasn’t natural history either.

“I think we’re lost,” Maxie pointed out.

“We’re not lost,” Eren snorted, “don’t be stupid.”

One of the other gremlins gawped at him. “You can’t call people stupid in our classroom! Our teacher says-”

“Well we’re not _in_ the classroom are we? So I can say whatever I like.”

A flutter of concern was, however, beginning to sprout in Eren’s stomach. He had to get them to the meeting place, mapped out by a flustered Jean on a map Eren had lost hours ago, in time for lunch. He doubted they would remain wandering the sepia halls forever, lost in time like many of the exhibits here, but the fact remained that he would have to deal with bitching kids for the rest of the trip and complaints from parents that poor little Jimmy went hungry because of some thug getting him lost.

Eren grimaced at the thought. His septum piercing and assortment of metal decorating his ears was enough to make anyone shout that blessed word at him, but ‘thug’ was as farthest from the truth as they could get. Despite that, Jean had asked him to take out the septum, if only to save the frail hearts of the Middle Class White Moms. Eren had relented, but the other piercings stayed.

Maxie was tugging him to the right, and Eren let himself be led around the corner, certain that this kid knew the museum far better than he ever would, anyway. “I’m not stupid,” Maxie sniffed for good measure. “See? We’re getting close.” Eren looked up from Maxie to see a forest of bones laid out before him.

Ah, of course – the dinosaur section.

The more he looked, the more they became shapes; long dead animals with arching necks or cumbersome frills or sharp teeth. They looked like various breeds of dragon, frozen in time as the curators tried to pose their bones in as lifelike a stance as possible. Eren remembered this section from when he was small. He remembered the way he would stare, spellbound, at these creatures and try to comprehend the very thought that they were once living, breathing animals. The only clue that they ever were more than teeth and bone were miniature clay copies in front of them, the kind detailed enough to awake imaginations in children but vague enough to be acceptable to the experts too. _Maybe one day_ , Eren remembered himself wishing as he gazed at them, _maybe one day the bones will wake up._ He wondered if any of these kids thought the same thing.

Then he noticed they were staring at him. Shit.

“Well,” he said, “it’s not _exactly_ natural history.”

Maxie gave him a severe look.

Most of the skeletons and fossils were behind glass, but one beast was protected by nothing more than a red rope. It was still pretty big – Eren’s professional opinion – and gawky as hell. It wasn’t sure whether it was about to sit down or it was about to rise onto its hind legs. It had a small head, a long neck but delicate looking toes that pointed out like a dancer. It was a weird looking thing – not quite T Rex and not quite Diplodocus. Eren considered it incredibly optimistic of the curators to leave the thing exposed to the visitors of the museum, all who were intent on prodding or poking anything they possibly could. Nothing would be safe – not even a long dead lizard on steroids. He had to admit, he had the urge himself.

“I have Lunchables to eat,” Maxie grumbled. “Can we go now?”

Eren ignored him.

“What kind of dinosaur is _that_?” one of the others asked.

Eren was going to shrug and tell them to figure it out themselves – then figured he probably had to start sounding like a fun adult to be around. If only the question had been asked ten years ago. Maybe then he would have had some kind of idea.

“It’s an, uh…” he crouched down to look for a name somewhere on the information board. He found it. It didn’t help. “Plate-eh-oh-saurus?”

“ _Plateosaurus engelhardti”,_ came a voice from behind him. “It’s Greek for ‘Broad Lizard’. It’s considered one of the first prosauropods to appear in the Triassic.” 

Eren’s mood, if it were possible, deflated further. Great. Now they had some smug brainbox visitor taking it upon themselves to educate him. And in front of the equally smug kids too? Eren straightened up, wrangling a sigh out of his mouth, and turned to face the busybody. “Yeah, that’s what I mea-”

And his mouth snapped shut. Because it wasn’t some smug, nerdy visitor. It was a guy around his age with a definite name tag hanging from a lanyard around his neck, and he was beaming at him. Properly beaming, like he’d been waiting for him to show up. And _god_ he was cute.

His hair was overly neat, his entire being radiating boundless enthusiasm and even his button up shirt looking casually deliberate. What Eren’s eyes were focused on, however, was the large tattoo creeping up his arm from his wrist bone. As he followed it, the ink bled out into branches and buds, and disappeared under said dishevelled shirt. And hidden under _that_ was…muscle. Lots of muscle. What kind of museum _was_ this, that employed tattooed Adonises?

Eren very nearly let his jaw drop open. _Very_ nearly.

The guy spoke again. “It’s okay, it’s hard to pronounce some of these Latin and Greek names. You need to be practically fluent in both to make sense of them,” he said, his voice as breezy as his smile, and Eren was floored.

“Uh…” was all he managed to get out. The children were peering at him like he’d just flat-lined – which, Eren supposed, he had.

The longer he stared, the quicker the smile faded from the guy’s face. He ended up scratching the back of his neck and giving a more bashful alternative. “Sorry, we, uh, don’t get many visitors in the week.”

Eren blinked once. Twice. Then managed to sort his life out and string together a more cohesive sentence. “Th-that’s okay, I just… tell me more about the Plateotops.”

“Plateosaurus.”

“Right.”

“Mr Jaeger, I’m hungry,” one of the children whined. Eren conveniently shuffled to one side to shield them from view.

The smile was back, and _fuck_ Eren could fall into those eyes of his. In fact, he would be quite happy to cast off and let himself sink down, down, down… “Well it’s not a well-known dinosaur,” he began, “seeing as it’s a little boring compared to some of the others. But I find them fascinating! They’re the prototype for the sauropods that came in the Jurassic period and were one of the bigger dinosaurs in the Triassic era. This one was found in Germany, but they’re found all across Europe and…”

Eren was ashamed to say that he’d zoned out just listening to the guy’s voice. It was a soft, audiobook sort of voice, the kind that could send you to sleep with the right words and inspire you to do anything in the same breath. It sounded like a fresh blast of wind in the midst of a drought. Eren wanted to hear it every day, from the time he woke up to the time he went to sleep. He wanted this guy in his house cooking breakfast and waking him up with gentle kisses on his cheek and…

Fuck, he was getting poetic and thinking about this guy living with him. This was not a good idea- he was a terrible poet. And he was a shitty roommate.

“So, do you guys like dinosaurs?”

He mentally shook himself and followed the guy’s eyes downwards. Oh yeah. He was with kids. Right. Totally didn’t forget about that.

“We’re looking for-”

“We like dinosaurs, yeah,” Eren cut in. “I love them, can’t get enough of them.”

There was the grin again. _Oh, fuck **me**_. “You do?”

Eren tried out his own grin and nodded a little too enthusiastically to be casual. “Yeah, I… I really do, I think they’re amazing.” Not exactly a lie. Not _really._ “I’m really interested in their…uh…” he asked his brain for any intelligent input, any at all, and it offered him, “…largeness?”

Eren wanted to smack himself in the face. Maxie looked like he would happily do it for him.

To his relief, Marco laughed. “Well they are pretty big, it’s cool to think that these creatures were living and breathing the same air as us at some point in the earth’s history.” He paused. “Well, not _exactly_ the same air, the air quality back then was probably more oxygen rich… which explains why they got so big without having to rely on weighting themselves in water.”

Eren was pretty sure he wanted to marry this guy. Sure, he didn’t know his name, but what was the point of names? He’d happily call him ‘Plateosaurus Guy’ until his lungs stopped working. Would that be weird to moan during sex? Probably. He wouldn’t care. It’d probably turn the guy on. Was there a kink for that?

Maxie gave his hand a particularly hard yank to get his attention. “ _Eren_.”

Eren glared down at him. Now was the time to put on his ‘I am in a position of authority and you knocked me out of my erotic fantasy how dare you’ voice. “Yes? Can’t you see I’m talking?”

Maxie didn’t look convinced. God, he looked like his dad when he scowled. “Eren, we need to go have food. I want my Lunchables.”

“You can stick your bloody Lunchables up your-”

“Oh, I’m sorry! I can show you to the lunch room, if you like,” the guy said, all courtesy and smiles.

Eren nearly gave a kid a kick when he heard them mutter, “That’s what we wanted in the first place,” and offered his best, debonair smile. “That would be great. More than great. Er, brilliant. They’re such assho- I mean, adorable little monsters when they’re hungry, heh heh.”

The guy just chuckled and said, “Follow me,” like Eren hadn’t just made an absolute arse of himself. Eren almost tripped over his feet in his eagerness to keep pace with him, which only served to make the guy’s smile more sincere. He swore he saw Maxie actually _roll his eyes_ at him. He’d been around Jean too much. He was getting far too sassy for his own good.

* * *

Jean couldn’t hide the relief on his face when Eren eventually turned up with his group of very hungry, very annoyed children in tow. The Dinosaur Guy had to go for his own lunch, but he left them with a sunny wave and a smile and Eren scuttled away before he had a chance to say anything remotely embarrassing. It was sad to see him go, but then Eren did get to have a nice little gander at the way his back muscles stretched the shirt he was wearing.

Jean looked hassled. That was the only word to describe him: hassled. He was busy attending to a squabble between a ginger boy with braces and a blonde girl with a snotty expression on her face, fatigue sketched across his face as he carefully talked them through why stealing one another’s food was the absolute wrong thing to do. Eren wondered where the teacher was, then realised they were probably sat in the cosy museum coffee shop taking a break. The TA’s got all the hard shit – at least, that’s how Jean told it.

“Dad, dad!” Maxie ran over to Jean immediately and practically latched onto his leg, giving Eren an accusatory glare. “Dad, Eren was talking to the dinosaur guy and forgot about us,” he said.

Jean chuckled and scruffed Maxie’s hair, grinning as he watched it stick up on end. “That sounds familiar.” He glanced up at Eren and smirked. “What was it this time? Did he have a nice…personality?”

Eren couldn’t help the flush that wormed its way to the surface. “It’s not a good idea to tease the person saving your ass from these gremlins,” he replied, moving to stand beside him. Jean had always been taller than him, but now with his ‘ _Mr Kirschtein: Teaching Assistant_ ’ badge pinned to his chest, he was somehow taller still. Jean was the kind who grew up fast. He had a flat, a job, a husband and Maxie. Well, technically Maxie was a package deal with Armin, but that didn’t negate the fact that Jean had it sorted. Eren, on the other hand, considered pouring milk into his cereal box to skip on washing up on a daily basis.

“True. But still. Who is he? Armin might know him.”

Eren shrugged. “Didn’t catch his name.”

Jean side eyed him. “Was he cute?”

“You are married.”

“It’s a process of elimination!”

Still, Eren didn’t feel like talking about it. He’d already looked like a dithering idiot in front of the guy; he wasn’t going to relay those sorrows to someone like Jean. That would be blackmail fuel for years to come. So they made sure the kids were eating happily (Maxie finally got those precious fucking Lunchables of his) and ate their own in comparative silence. Jean gleefully informed Eren that Armin was working today, so they would probably see him about, and Eren said that Jean was completely and utterly sunk for Armin. “Well, I married him,” Jean shrugged, “so obviously I am. What about you?”

“What do you mean?” Eren asked through a mouthful of sandwich. By some miracle, Jean managed to decode it.

“Settling down. Finding someone. You feeling it yet?” Jean tilted his head to one side like he was examining him. “Totally okay if not, but… I mean, you ever thought you were maybe-?”

“Jean, I like sex far too much to be ace, but thanks for the suggestion.”

“Just trying to help.” Jean grinned. “So running after hot museum guys is your idea of a good time, huh?”

Eren threw the remainder of his sandwich at him.

The afternoon was spent in the same groups, going over the same worksheet. Eren felt like he had a duty upon himself to actually get the kids to do _some_ work, so he led them around the appropriate exhibits and pointed out the answers to a few of them (the ones he didn’t like got fake answers – the little shits deserved it) and after a while, he began to find that he was enjoying himself. The kids weren’t that bad, all things considered, and Maxie was a laugh. He couldn’t help the rising hope when they returned to the dinosaur section to fill out that particular area of the worksheet, but there was no handsome stranger in sight. There was nothing but bones and what sounded like forest ambience playing overhead. Eren tried not to feel too disappointed, and got them all to answer the question on what period of time the Plateosaurus lived in and the average size of a dinosaur egg.

They were heading out of that section and turning to go up the stairs and into ‘Egypt and Mummies’ when a young man with his hair plucked into a loose bun appeared at the top of them. Armin Arlert, forever laden with books and records, was an easy spot. Eren grinned to see him now, in his element.

“DAAAD!” Maxie shrieked gleefully, dropping all pretence of coolness and charging headlong into his father’s stomach.

With an ‘oof’ Armin stumbled backwards, but a strong hand appeared out of nowhere to steady him. “Woah, careful Armin!” came _that voice._ The audiobook voice. “Those books will be the death of you!”

And there he was, in all his smiley and tattooed glory. Eren had tried to make himself believe that the guy wasn’t really as cute as he thought he’d been, that it was just overexposure from obnoxious children making him desperate, but oh god he was wrong. He was so, so wrong. This guy was gorgeous. It was not remotely fair. “You should be more careful!” he chided Armin, though his brows were drawn down to show he was more concerned than frustrated. “Let me take some of those.”

“Don’t worry, Marco. It’s just my son trying to maim me,” Armin replied calmly, though he passed the books to the guy’s waiting hands regardless and wrapped his arms around Maxie. “Hey there! Is your Dad behaving himself?” he asked with a squeeze to Maxie’s middle.

“Just about,” Maxie giggled.

“And Eren?”

“He called us gremlins.”

That was when both Armin and the now named Marco looked down at the assembled group at the bottom. Marco’s eyes, coffee coloured and warm, locked straight on Eren’s. “Oh, hello again!” he said, and _there was the beam holy fucking shit._

Eren was pretty sure what came out of his mouth was more of a bleat than a response.

Marco blinked a few times. “Um, excuse me?”

Eren never asked to be a casanova. He never wanted to be a suave, smooth talking romancer. What he had wanted was to be a little more articulate than blurting out, “YOU’RE THE DINOSAUR GUY” in a panic – and at a volume that was far too loud for a museum. Eren wanted to shut himself in Armin’s back office archives and never come out. He could hear a fucking pin drop as everyone just stared down at him. Even the kids were squinting at him in disbelief. Eren felt the blush flaming his cheeks and tips of his ears, and tried to open his mouth to laugh it off, say something cool, say anything to stop the awkward silence crushing any remaining shred of dignity he possessed. Armin passed off his snigger as a sneeze, but Marco still looked a little startled.

“Uh… yeah, I am the dinosaur guy, but I, uh, go by Marco too.”

Scratch living in the archives. Eren wanted to crawl into the sarcophagus with the mummy and stay there for all eternity.

Armin really did laugh then, and didn’t even try to cover it up. “That’s Eren, my dork of a best friend,” he said. “He’s usually a bit better with words – spending time with his mental age group seems to have done some damage.”

Eren could think of nothing better to do than clap a hand to his face and groan.

“Come on kids,” he heard Armin say, “let me show you where I work.” And just like that, the weight of half a dozen eyes was gone from his back. Eren wheezed a ‘thank you’ to the air and let his hand drop from his face.

He hadn’t reckoned on Marco still being stood there.

His stomach rather helpfully decided to drop so fast it was like it was abandoning ship. “S-sorry,” Eren managed to get out through his fumbling lips. “I’m so sorry, I’m an idiot, I’m stupid, I’m-”

“It’s okay, really.” Marco gave him that sunny little smile again – though this one didn’t feel like it was for just anyone. It wasn’t the shallow little customer service smile he’d given before… or maybe Eren liked to think it wasn’t. “I… am the dinosaur guy here. Well, one of them.”

Eren groaned. “God, I’m sorry, I just…” Think you’re hot? Want to know if you’re into guys? Really want to bend you over the nearest available surface? “…just love dinosaurs.”

Something inside of him shrieked at the bare-faced lie – another part just held its metaphorical head in its hands and _wailed_.

Marco, bless him, had the audacity to look hopeful. “Really?”

Eren gulped. “Uh, yeah, I love them. Like I said, I… can’t get enough of them.” He was almost cringing at how false he sounded. “I think they’re incredible.”

For a moment, he thought Marco had found him out. He saw a flicker of something cross his face, like he wasn’t quite sure Eren was telling the truth (and in all honesty, it hadn’t sounded all that truthful), but then he gave this great big beaming smile and all coherent thought vanished from Eren’s mind. “That’s so great!” he cried.

Eren blinked dumbly. “I-it is?” he said, completely wrongfooted by Marco’s enthusiasm.

“Yeah! It’s so rare to find people who have a genuine interest!” Marco said. Eren managed to keep the cringe from his face as Marco continued, “Dinosaurs are some of the most fascinating animals that ever walked this planet, and yet nobody cares enough to find out more about them! They think they’re stupid or slow and sluggish, when in reality they were so intelligent and capable of great maternal instincts and nurtured their young like mammals would today and…”

He was rambling again. Eren let him ramble – he was too busy watching the way Marco gesticulated madly with his hands, like they too were so excited they just couldn’t remain still. For someone who looked so casually handsome and outrageously _cool_ , Marco was the biggest nerd Eren had ever had the pleasure of meeting. There was definitely nothing wrong with that, but… well, it was a very pleasant surprise.

“…nosaurus may have even had feathers, can you believe that? T rex? Feathered? We’re finding new things out about them all the time,” he was now saying, and Eren suddenly caught up.

He frowned. Had Marco just said what he thought he had? He held up a hand to stop him. “Wait, what? Feathers?”

Marco’s eyes glittered. He seemed grateful for the opportunity to draw breath. “Yes, they think Tyrannosaurus might have had feathers. Or at least, some kind of feathery down.”

“Bullshit,” Eren snorted. “I didn’t get obsessed with T-rex when I was a kid to find out that it’s really just a giant chicken.”

Marco laughed, and Eren had the strangest idea that this was some sort of flirting. His limited knowledge of dating told him that saying something to make the object of your affection laugh that airy, light little laugh that dangles between genuine and false was definitely Good Move Number One and was guaranteed a little kiss on the cheek when the date was over. This? This wasn’t a date, but that airy little laugh...

“Would you like to step into my office so we can discuss this further?” Marco asked, a crooked little smirk weaving its way across his face as he gestured in a large sweeping motion to the right.

Well, if Eren’s brain had any hope of working before, it was well and truly fucked now.

“E-excuse me?” he squawked.

Marco snorted out a chuckle and gestured again, though far less grand this time around. “My office. Coming?”

 _If you keep talking like that, then definitely,_ Eren wanted to blurt out. He managed, by some grace, to keep it to himself. But the way Marco was grinning and the way he’d already starting moving towards his office in eagerness made Eren scuttle to his side again, cheeks flaming and pulse thudding in his chest. Was that it? Had ‘feathered T Rex’ been some sort of sordid code Marco had with the other extraordinarily hot guys working here? Had Eren been accepted as one of their own? Eren had never tried office sex before. There was a first for everything. He definitely had no qualms about being bent over a table, granted, but –

“Here we are!” Marco trilled, and kicked the door of his office open rather unceremoniously.

Eren tried to remember how to put one foot in front of the other without falling flat on his face, and scurried inside.

* * *

“Well, what did you expect?”

“You’d laugh if I told you.”

“I can guess.”

“Shut up, Jean.”

Eren was slumped at Jean and Armin’s kitchen table, head in hands and the run-off blush from earlier still cooling on his cheeks. Jean and Armin were busy bustling around their little kitchen, ducking underneath one another to reach shelves and shimmying out of the way of a particularly steaming pot of something, but Jean still had the energy to taunt him. Of fucking course. As Eren glared up at the perpetrator through his mop of hair, he caught Armin giving him an eskimo kiss in payment for getting to the sink.

“Ugh, get a room you two,” he muttered, throwing a dishcloth at them. It landed harmlessly on Jean’s shoulder and flopped to the floor as they stood there, oblivious.

“They’re always like this,” Maxie said beside him, as if that made anything better.

“Twitterpated,” Eren replied, “take my advice, don’t ever go there bud.”

“That’s rich, coming from someone who just got rejected,” Jean chirped.

“I did not get rejected!” Eren slunk down even further, so far in fact that his chin barely rested on the lip of the table.

“What would you call it?”

“Fuck off, Jean.”

“LANGUAGE.”

“What does ‘rejected’ mean?” Maxie asked, looking straight to Armin for the answer.

Armin, with a mocking smile, obliged. “It’s when a smart alec thinks he’s onto something and it turns out he’s onto something completely different.”

Maxie frowned. “So is that why there’s a pile of dinosaur books on the table?”

After Jean had finished laughing and Armin had told Eren if he threw one more thing he would be out of the apartment, the buzzer went off to remind them that the lasagne was done. Eren watched Jean bolt to the oven to see to the fruit of his labour, and struggled to sit up straighter under Armin’s watchful eye.

So, okay, he’d made a bit of an error. When he and Marco stepped into the slightly smaller than expected office, Eren had began to eye up the most convenient space that Marco was sure to lift him onto or splay him over. The sad reality was that Marco’s office was pretty small; any space that was available was taken by great glass cabinets or bookcases, and his desk looked more like a school desk than anything else. _Still,_ Eren thought, _beggars couldn’t be choosers._ Marco had turned away and began to rummage around the bookcases, and Eren moved to perch on said desk. It creaked. He’d very swiftly moved away. So much for _that_ idea. He was just about to peel off his shirt and shimmy out of his jeans when Marco turned back – with an armful of books and a pleased grin.

“These are always a good place to start!” he’d said – and every inch of libido in Eren’s system shrivelled up and died with the rising tide of embarrassment.

Those selfsame books were now stacked in front of him, with such thrilling titles as: ‘ _Evolution and the Fossil Record in the Mesozoic Era’_ and ‘ _Dinosaurs: A Definitive Natural History’._ Eren poked at one of their spines with a huff as the smell of Italian food wafted from the oven. Maybe it was a good thing – he could have been naked when Marco turned around, after all, and then he really would have gotten banned from the museum.

Jean was still sniggering a little when he set Eren’s plate down, but Eren couldn’t be too mad once he caught the sight of the lasagne with accompanying vegetables (those were Armin’s handiwork). Eren grumbled a thank you and seized his fork, whilst Armin cleared the rest of the table, books and all.

“You have to admit, it is a little funny,” he said once Maxie had excused himself after dinner, setting the offending literature lightly down on the hastily cleaned table. Armin handled books like they were holy things, his touch so gentle and reverent like they were birds able to stir at the slightest sound. His eyes flashed up to land mischievously on Eren. “I mean, who in their right mind thinks that they’re going to be seduced by a prehistoric assistant curator?”

“Eren has some filthy kinks?” Jean suggested, and got a whack on the arm from Armin for his trouble.

Eren huffed. “If you hadn’t already figured it out, my brain wasn’t exactly working earlier.”

Jean muttered an incredulous, ‘it works?’ before getting another whack from Armin. “It’s just odd seeing you get so… flustered,” Armin admitted. “It’s very cute.”

Cute was not an adjective Eren was used to being linked to. He scowled, and drew one of the books closer to him in order to peer at the cover. “I’m not cute,” he muttered as he opened the book slowly, “I’m hot as hell.”

“Sure. Marco’s cute though.”

If Eren could roll his eyes without being seen, he would have. _Well duh, state the motherfucking obvious there Armin._ Marco was beyond cute, he wanted to argue. Marco was easily the most endearing person Eren had ever met, and he’d only really been in the vicinity of Marco for half an hour. He wanted more, though, he wanted to chase that time like his life depended on it. Instead, he opted for a casually raised eyebrow and an offhand, “Your point being?” _Nailed it._

Armin shared a glance with Jean, who shrugged in response, and replied, “Well, Marco’s been out of a pretty long term relationship for the past six months. He’s gotten over the guy now, and… he is looking. He spoke to me about it the other day at lunchtime.” Armin eyed Jean again. “I actually thought he was hinting at a threesome at one point, but I think that’s his lack of tact.”

“Sounds like he and Eren are meant to be.”

“Fuck off.”

“The point is,” Armin said, cutting them off before they had the chance to engage in insult-tennis, “Marco might actually be interested in a relationship right now, if you were too.”

“Interested?” Jean grinned and gave Eren a nudge. “I can see the boner this guy’s sporting for poor Marco the Dinosaur Nerd a mile away.”

Eren glowered at him, but he couldn’t exactly disagree. Besides, the idea that Marco was looking… that was a start. Maybe, when Eren had waited enough time to pretend he’d read all the books Marco had given him, he could go back to the museum, ask for Marco’s number or organise to go for coffee or a drink somewhere. Maybe then Marco would smile and nod and be swept off his feet in a whirlwind romance…

Okay, now Eren knew he’d watched too many Disney films. He had to stop babysitting Maxie, it wasn’t good for his image.

He dragged the books a little closer, peered at the front cover sporting some sort of feathered monstrosity with its mouth wide open and dripping with saliva, and shuddered. “Okay, so… I told Marco I really love dinosaurs,” he began.

Armin let out a short ‘whoosh’ of breath, the way he always did when he had to save Eren’s ass. “Oh, you’ve got work to do,” he said.

* * *

Eren read the books.

He didn’t really mean to; they just sat on the corner of his coffee table like an itch, getting under his skin and reminding him that there was something new in his apartment he hadn’t accounted for. Eren was no neat freak, but he had a system of organised chaos, and Marco’s books did not belong in that chaos. They were just far too Marco – but that wasn’t exactly a bad thing.

So Eren read them. It felt more like an act of defiance – more a, ‘fuck you I’m smart I’m reading you’ kind of notion than true enjoyment – but after the first book, Eren found himself picking up the second. And the third.

Soon he was taking them to work with him and burying his nose in the taxonomy, biology and etymology of the damn things (there were, Eren found out, a lot of ‘gies’ and ‘mies’ where dinosaurs were concerned, and all of them foreign languages). His co-workers kept giving him odd looks, but didn’t care enough to ask. Eren was grateful for that. He wasn’t exactly sure what he would have said: ‘yeah I’m just researching just in case I managed to get this cute guy to date me’ didn’t seem like it would have been understood.

No matter how much he told himself he was reading for purely selfish reasons, he found himself choosing to pick them up. They stopped becoming a chore to read, and became something he reached for when he had a spare five minutes. He spent some nights just curled up on his moth-eaten old sofa, delving into the finer points of classification and differences between specific dinosaur species and finding animals he hadn’t even known existed. Like Therizonosaurs- _fuck_ Therizonosaurs.

He finished the books in a week or so. He wrote off his next free day for a trip to the museum.

He took the bus from his flat early in the morning, and got to the museum as it was opening. There weren’t many waiting outside; some old guy wheezing and complaining about his sciatica to anyone who’d listen and a hassled looking teenager who may have been an art student wasn’t exactly a crowd. Once the doors opened, Eren strode in with a purpose the other two guests lacked, with the books tucked under his arm and confidence riding in every step.

He didn’t find Marco straightaway. In fact, he wandered around the museum aimlessly for a few hours before he made his way back to the dinosaur exhibit and saw Marco drifting about the perimeter, watching out for any unsuspecting visitors to bombard with information. God, he looked even better than the first time he’d seen him; he’d clearly only just come in, as his shirt and jeans get-up was far more casual than it had been, and when he turned around, Eren couldn’t help the smile that sprung to his face.

Marco was wearing a Jurassic Park shirt.

Of _course_ it was Jurassic Park.

Eren bit his lip, and stepped out from the doorway. “Uh, hey!” he called out.

Marco looked up from one of the signs he was studying and gave a surprised little jolt. “Oh, hello!” he said, and the smile was back. The special one. The quieter one. “I didn’t expect to see you so soon.” He brushed his thumb over the corner of the sign as he moved, a gesture that was so affectionate for an inanimate object that it made Eren’s heart hiccup a little.

Trying to ignore the sudden rush of blood to his head, Eren gestured at the books tucked safe under his arm. “Well, I read them all.” It wasn’t the most eloquent sentence, but it did the job.

Marco blinked. “All of them?”

Eren nodded. “Yeah. I, uh, sorta didn’t have much to do this week, and I kinda got hooked.” He rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand and tried his best to look sheepish. “Therizonosaurs are cool.”

Marco moved closer, a frown crossing his face. For a moment, Eren’s smile faded. “You really read all of them?” Marco asked. “You’re not just… bringing them back because you got bored?”

Eren shook his head. “Nope. Scout’s honour.” He paused. “Though the guy who wrote the last one got a bit bored halfway through. I could tell.”

“He changed his theory halfway through, yeah.” The way Marco was frowning, Eren knew he was surprised. He’d thought Eren would run away with the books and never return them – that or he would have blagged his way through them in some vain hope to impress him. Granted, that had been Eren’s Plan A. “He realised he was arguing that Tyrannosaurus was an apex predator when it’s really got a body for a scavenger…”

“Yeah… weird to see how people change their minds about dinosaurs, even now.” Eren shrugged.

God, Marco looked really good. His hair was less contained and more flyaway today, like he really had just started work and was running late, and Eren liked the way it stuck up on end in the most bizarre little cowlick. The Jurassic Park logo was stretched over Marco’s chest like he could have done with a size up (Eren was not complaining one little bit), and the shorter sleeves allowed Eren the opportunity to spy another little tattoo. It looked suspiciously like a set of tail bones curving around from an invisible point under the fabric, but Eren quickly averted his eyes when Marco caught him staring.

He let out a small huffing chuckle. “Yes, it’s another tattoo. You’re one to talk, with all that metal in your face.”

A cold drip of shame began to trickle down Eren’s back, and he folded his arms in an attempt to stop it getting to his legs. “Wh-what’s wrong with piercings?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Marco said breezily. “They suit you, actually.”

Forget the shame. Now the blush was hitting him again. Eren wasn’t sure he’d be able to hold out with such emotional whiplash. “O-oh,” was all he managed to get out.

And then, to his immense shock, Marco blushed too. Only a little bit. It was enough to darken his cheeks and make Eren’s face redder. “A-anyway,” he said, shoving his hands in his pockets, “I’m just here to write up some papers, so I should probably get going.”

“Right, yeah, uh, of course, yeah.” _Ask him now_ , the voice in Eren’s head urged. _Ask him out. Ask for his number, **anything**_ **.** “…do you want me to bring the books back for you?”

It wasn’t really what he wanted to say, but it was better than nothing at all.

Marco’s smile and beckoning nod towards the stairs said it all.

* * *

Eren did not get a date that day, nor did he get Marco’s number. He did, however, come home with the entire collection of _Walking With Dinosaurs_ and a wish that the ground would just hurry up and swallow him already.

He watched the entire series in an evening and wondered what the hell his life had come to when he cried without warning over a dead Leaellynasaura.

* * *

And so it went on. Eren would go back to the museum and talk about the books or podcasts or documentaries Marco had recommended to him, Marco would get happy, and Eren would come back with another book or podcast or documentary. It happened again and again, week on week, and soon Eren knew a lot more about dinosaurs and the Mesozoic era in general than he ever thought possible.

It wasn’t that he minded; it meant seeing Marco, after all, and from what little personal information he found out about the illusive dinosaur expert, one thing he did know was that Marco practically lived at the museum. When he wasn’t working, he was there finishing off papers, and during his spare time he was usually in the museum archives looking for things to put into said papers.

Eren knew this because on one such visit he was granted the privilege of trailing Marco to those archives like it was Bring Your Idiot To Work Day, and watching him coo and fuss over lumps of rock that, for all Eren knew, could have been anything. The archives were stuffy and silent and underground, and though this was probably the ideal conditions for fossils and old documents and artifacts, humans did not flourish quite so well. Eren held back all complaints whilst Marco showed him a few of the less delicate fossils and collections, and Eren nodded and ‘ooh’ed in all the right places until-

“What’s this?”

Marco looked up from a little knobble of bone he’d been studying with a soft, ‘hmm?’

Eren had been pulling out the drawers of larger artifacts with as much reckless abandon as one could in a museum archive environment, but he’d stopped at the sight of a large, flat, strangely teardrop shaped object nestled safely in its glass case. It looked different from the other fossils; it took up an entire shelf on its own, and was easily the size of his chest. It was also very smooth save for a few little markings tracking their way down to its base. The lines branched out like the tree limbs of Marco’s tattoo, sometimes meeting other lines from a different direction and all gathering at the base of the object. Eren frowned. If he didn’t know any better, he would say that the lines were blood vessels.

“Ah, that’s very special,” came a voice from by his ear. Marco was stood behind him, his hand straying very close to Eren’s as he leaned over to see clearer. Eren froze at the proximity. “It’s a stegosaur plate.”

Eren swallowed dryly. God, Marco got into his system so quickly it made sounding like a rational person so much harder. “A plate?” he asked, trying his best to sound like said rational person.

“Mmhmm.” Marco leant closer, and Eren could feel the way his chin rested _millimetres_ away from his shoulder. “There were lots of them arranged on top of the stegosaur’s spine, and the little markings you can see are-”

“-blood vessels?” Eren guessed.

Marco made a pleased hum in the back of his throat. “That’s right,” he said, in a voice softer than a whisper. He spoke softly in the archives, like he was afraid to wake something sleeping inside, and as he leant closer and actually _did_ brush his chin over Eren’s shoulder, Eren wondered if the tone was partly for his benefit too. “Stegosaur plates were filled with blood vessels, which suggest they could be flushed and made bright. Something like a courtship ritual. Or, they could be used for thermoregulation.”

His voice was lulling Eren into a false sense of security, and he knew that if his guard dropped then he could do something really fucking stupid. Something like turning around and kissing Marco in the middle of a tiny, poorly ventilated room kind of stupid. He kept his gaze fixed on the plate, tried not to think about kissing Marco and thought about stegosaurus. If anything, it would be a boner killer – he hoped. “So you’re saying… Stegosaurus was just a really big radiator?” Eren asked.

He turned to look at Marco. He’d managed to forget, conveniently, how close they were, and so as he turned they narrowly missed bumping noses. Eren opened his mouth to apologise, but for some reason his voice fell short. Marco’s gaze was completely on him, the look plunging deep into the curious soul beneath the piercings and bravado, and it sent a shiver up Eren’s spine. Marco was so close to him, his fingers skirting dangerously close to brushing against his own, and Eren knew he could just do it. He was brave. He was reckless. He could bridge the gap, right here and now, and no one would know except him and Marco. If it had been anyone else, he would have done it. But this was Marco, and Marco was somehow different. He just waited, the archives incapable of catching and containing time – though he wished they did – and Marco moved away, a small chuckle bubbling up from his throat. “How do you do that?” he asked.

Eren blinked. “Do what?”

“That. Taking… revolutionary ideas about dinosaur evolution and use of their various features and break it down to such a _simple_ idea?” Marco shook his head, rubbing the back of his neck with a single grin. “I’ve never met an academic like you.”

Eren bit his lip. “Well, it’s a good thing I’m not an academic then, isn’t it?”

Marco’s smile was a thoughtful one, the kind that blossomed further hope in Eren’s chest. “I guess so,” was all he said, voice still wondering, but then he was shutting the drawer and locking it back up. Eren noticed the way his hands trembled. And that was it; they then headed back up to the main museum floor and Marco’s office and all was as it always was. Marco talked dinosaurs and paper writing, Eren talked about work and life and everything in between, and then he left with two new books tucked under his arm predominantly about sauropods. The whiplash of that particular visit was enough to send Eren back to Armin and Jean with confused noises and pleas to be cooked dinner again.

“I don’t get it,” he mumbled into his hands as Jean set down his omelette. “I’m not exactly being subtle.”

“I don’t think you could be capable of subtlety,” Jean commented, “so I believe that.” Eren gave him a scowl amid the playful hair ruffle he received. “Have you ever considered the notion that Marco’s not interested in you?”

Eren frowned. Depressing though the thought was, it had crossed his mind. He wasn’t a pushy person; if he knew someone didn’t like him in that way, he moved on. He went home and cried, granted, but he moved on. He wouldn’t try to chip away at their stubborn ‘no’ in the hope a ‘yes’ would come out fully formed the second time around. But there was something about Marco that made him think there _was_ something; the looks, the tremors in his voice if Eren got too close, the whole archive episode… it was like they were circling one another, but too far apart for their paths to ever cross. It was infuriating. “I think he does,” Eren said, after a rather drawn out silence. He squinted at Jean, who had now sat down opposite him to devour his own omelette. “Did you love Armin the minute you met him?”

Jean chewed the thought over with his food. “I think I knew,” he said eventually. “I didn’t do the whole ‘love at first sight’ thing, if that’s what you’re getting at.” He shrugged. “But I knew I was onto a good one. We just _got_ each other, you know? He was smart, charming, Maxie liked me… but he wanted me just as much.”

“That’s not how Armin tells it.”

Jean scowled. “Armin’s a bald faced liar, he fell for my dashing good looks.”

“He said you met when you fell over his chair and nearly brained yourself on the fire extinguisher.”

“Details are irrelevant. But seriously,” Jean was waving his fork around as he spoke, so much so that flecks of omelette were beginning to fly off the end, “there was never any doubt in our minds that we would work. Is it the same for you two?”

It was a valid question, and took the rest of the omelette eating time to mull over. There were doubts. Of course there were. They were very different people. Eren knew he could never hope to be as intelligent as Marco, for starters – he was comfortable in the knowledge that his IQ had scraped him through compulsory education and landed him an okay job. Marco was a genius, and Eren refused to accept any other word for him. Would he get bored? Would he need someone as intelligent as him to bounce conversation off of? _Probably_ , he thought with a sinking feeling in his chest as he helped clear up.

Lying to get to know Marco better probably hadn’t been a great move either, in all honesty – but Eren wasn’t sure he had found out much about him. He could tell anyone that the most complete Tyrannosaur skeleton in the world was called ‘Sue’, or that iguanodon walked on four legs and ran on two. What he couldn’t tell anyone was whether Marco had any siblings, or when his birthday was, or his favourite food. The simple fact was that he _didn’t_ know Marco Bodt. He didn’t even have the guy’s phone number, he realised as he helped Jean wash up the dishes.

He didn’t really start to worry until Armin came home looking tired and slightly irritable. “DAD!” Maxie cried from where he’d been sprawled on the floor repeatedly beating Eren at Mario Kart. Eren sneakily unpaused the game when Maxie got up to greet his father and made sure to pass Maxie’s character before pausing it again. Armin ran a hand through his son’s hair and smiled that tired Dad smile that too many of Eren’s friends were getting lately, and glanced into the living room. Eren knew he wouldn’t have a chance at getting attention first. Armin’s eyes always glided to Jean.

As if on command, Jean stood up and engulfed Armin in his arms, squeezing just a little before he pulled away to plant a kiss on his lips. “Welcome home,” he murmured against his lips, and Eren made gagging noises along with Maxie.

That was when Armin noticed him. “Looks like we’ve adopted,” he said, peering in just as Maxie realised what Eren had done to the game.

Jean snorted. “Absolutely not,” he replied over a bout of betrayed yelling. “I’m trying to help Romeo with his romance woes.”

“He’s got better, you must have been coaching him,” Eren chipped in.

Armin slumped down onto the sofa with a heavy sigh. “That’s funny,” he said, “because Marco was who kept me from leaving on time.”

Eren paused the game again, amid Maxie’s further wails of annoyance. “Everything alright?”

“Getting there.” Armin ran a hand through his hair and grimaced. “He has a lot of paperwork to get through before he leaves for Alberta.” Jean gave him a gentle smack on the arm, hissing a ‘shut up’ under his breath, but the damage was done. Armin knew it by the way his mouth dropped open. “Oh…”

His eyes went immediately to Eren, and a little jolt travelled through him under Armin’s regretful gaze. “What do you mean, Alberta?” he said faintly.

Armin bit his lip. “Eren, I know we should have told you, but we honestly didn’t know until about a week ago. Marco had been keeping it secret…”

“He’s going to Alberta?” The words sounded strange coming out of Eren’s mouth, like they weren’t his to say. Saying them gave the reality more weight, and as he sat up and dropped the game controller into his lap that same weight decided to press just a little harder on him.

Armin at least attempted to look sympathetic. “Eren, he has to. It’s part of his job, he’s going to take part in a paleontological dig there. It’s a big site for dinosaurs, and a massive move for his career.”

“He didn’t tell me.” Eren let his eyes fall on a point in the laminate flooring and moored it there, safe and unwavering. Marco hadn’t told him. He’d known for at least a week, if not longer, and he hadn’t told him. He wouldn’t have just ignored something as important as that; but Marco hadn’t said a word. He hadn’t told him when it was, or if he was excited, or how much he hated flying… “Oh god, he didn’t tell me anything,” he choked out.

“No offense Eren, but he’s not your boyfriend,” Jean said from his place on the sofa. “He can do whatever he likes, and if he doesn’t want to tell you, then he doesn’t tell you. You haven’t got that right.”

That stung. Not the boyfriend thing, the ‘not having a right’ thing. Eren liked to think that, despite his general idiocy around Marco, he had some sort of right to know what was going on with him. “Is he moving there?” he asked, though he wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer.

Armin chewed the corner of his lip. “Well…” He eyed Jean awkwardly, but Eren could decode it. He hadn't been Armin's best friend for years for nothing.

“He’s _moving_ there!?”

“I don’t know for sure! The dig is sort of…open-ended.” Armin had the good grace to look sympathetic. “I’m sorry, Eren. Could be weeks, or months. Maybe even a year or two.”

Eren didn’t feel up to company after that. He finished his game with Maxie, made some half-hearted excuse and left, Armin’s words ringing in his ears. Weeks. Months. _Years._ Marco could be gone for years? Eren knew he was being childish – he’d not even known Marco that long after all – but he also couldn’t stop the mini temper tantrum he had when he got home.

He slammed the door so hard it rattled and gave his dresser a passing kick for good measure before he slumped onto his sofa and hung his head, swearing under his breath, and that was the mindset he stayed lodged in for a week and a half. He went to work on autopilot, came home and ate the first thing he found in his cupboards and then watched something stupid on Netflix until he passed out and dragged his ass to bed. Wash, rinse, repeat. He didn’t go back to the museum. He didn’t answer Armin’s concerned texts with anything more than an ‘I’m fine’. He didn’t think about Alberta. He tried his best not to think about Marco. He failed this last step almost instantly.

Every time he let his guard drop, Marco was there, wedged into his mind’s eye with no notion of leaving. He kept catching himself wondering when Marco would be leaving, or if he’d packed enough, or if his family would miss him whilst he was away… it was maddening.

Eren wasn’t the sort who was waiting for one specific person to turn up and sweep him off his feet. He had flings, infatuations, crushes; they all fluttered past like birds, wild and fleeting. He was always funny, witty, charming, and knew exactly what to say at exactly the right time – but not many stopped for long enough to be something _more,_ something worth craving.

So why had this one? Of all people, why had Marco Bodt been the one who had dragged Eren back without warning to those awkward, fumbly teenage years?

Eren came upon the question precisely twelve days after he’d visited Armin and Jean. He was in the middle of a blitz; only once his apartment began to resemble a battlefield of fallen clothes and rotting food did Eren ever bother to clean, and it was one of those days. _Reverting to cleaning to ignore the way his chest throbbed when he thought about Marco was definitely a new low_ , Eren thought to himself as he ducked under his bed to pull out whatever was lurking beneath.  He groaned when he saw what met him. “Seriously?” he asked the ceiling, before he lowered his head to look down at the sauropod books Marco had given him. Fate _really_ had it in for him.

He dragged the books out from where he’d clearly shoved them in a fit of frustration, and smoothed a hand over the cover of the first. There was a rather doleful looking dinosaur on the cover, with tiny eyes and a head that didn’t quite match its body size, and the pages looked a little frayed and yellowed with the sun. Eren bit his lip and scooped it up, intending to read it in bed until he fell into a stupor and forgot about Alberta and museums and fucking cute curators. Maybe he’d keep the book out of spite – or out of the hope that he’d get asked to take it back.

But, once he threw himself into bed and opened the book to a random page for the hell of it, he noticed something. Where the other books he’d been given were crisp and relatively new and void of any flaws whatsoever, this one had faint pencil comments in the margins and underlined sections with little exclamation marks next to them. His brows furrowed. He hadn’t ever seen Marco write, but the untidy little scrawl he had to half squint to read was undoubtedly his. This wasn’t just a museum book – this book _belonged_ to Marco.

Eren flicked through a few more pages, and saw more and more comments and notes and asterisks, all scribbled out in pencil ready to be erased later. Marco had read this book from cover to cover, made notes as he went, and then kept it on a shelf until Eren came along. Eren frowned. How many of the other books had belonged to Marco, and Marco alone? This sort of knowledge meant the world to Marco; Eren knew just by the way he moved and spoke in the archives, or hung around waiting for visitors to regale with tales of the creatures in the museum collection. Marco lived and _breathed_ dinosaurs, and Eren hadn’t even considered the importance of Marco sharing that love with him.

The answer to _why Marco Bodt_ hit him like a freight train in that moment. Marco was sweet. He was clever. He was drop dead _gorgeous._ And for some ridiculous reason, he had unshakeable faith in Eren when it came to lending out books. Eren wanted to know him, like he knew Jean and Armin. He didn’t _need_ to be in Marco’s life - but that didn’t mean he didn’t _want_ to be.

The next morning, he called in sick to work.

* * *

Eren managed to stop himself from bolting out of the door until midday. By that time, he’d already successfully worked himself into a state and paced around his apartment so many times he was beginning to consider an old paint scratch on the wall an old friend. Once his clock hit twelve, he grabbed the books, placed them gently into his bag, and shouldered it. He was out of the door in a heartbeat, almost forgetting to lock up in his hurry.

The museum was quiet – when was it ever not? – when Eren stepped inside. The large clock in the main foyer ticked in the heavy, tired way that old things did, and Eren couldn’t help but feel a little impressed. Twenty minutes. Not bad, especially since he’d run a quarter of the way and nearly collapsed from the effort. He shifted his bag strap higher up his shoulder and started forward again, not running but moving quickly enough to have purpose.

He would already be too late, he knew as he steered himself around and through various exhibits at the fastest walk he’d ever accomplished. It had been too long since they had seen each other. Marco was probably in Alberta now, digging up bones and gleefully explaining to some fresh-faced undergrad how they fit together in the spine of a whatever-a-saurus. The mere thought had Eren tightening his grip on the bag strap and increasing his speed. He had to try, though. He had to.

When the dinosaur section came around the corner, Eren slowed down. He didn’t realise he’d been practically running until his breath all seemed to hit him at once and the muscle ache followed suit. He doubled over by the dinosaur eggs, cursing his own fragile lungs and lack of practical exercise, before he straightened up. It seemed too quiet, even for a museum. He’d been expecting Marco to just materialise out of thin air, grinning at Eren’s expense and offering him a sympathetic pat on the shoulder, but there was no one. He could have been gone already, a little voice in the back of Eren’s mind prodded unhelpfully. He could have gone and not even looked back. Eren might have been nothing more than that annoying guy who never gave that book back, and that was all there was to it.

Eren frowned the thought away, and started to walk around slowly, peering into every case like he hadn’t seen it five times over. It was more of an attempt to calm his traitorous mind and churning stomach than to actually take in what he was looking at. After all, he could tell anyone the outline of the dinosaur section from memory: eggs, iguanodon, models of Triceratops, Oviraptor…

And then, of course, there was the Plateosaurus.

Eren got to that part last, and when he did he tucked his hands in his pockets, let out a sigh and just looked. The animal wasn’t really as weird as he’d thought the first time he’d seen it. It was kind of graceful in its own way, with its elegant neck and delicately boned legs. It probably swayed when it was alive, Eren reckoned, and imagined how gently it would have gotten about. It would have stepped softly, turning its head this way and that to seek out potential predators, and then it would move on again, tail swinging slowly behind it to counterbalance the weight in its middle. Marco told him that Plateosaurus often raised itself onto its hind legs to reach food, and Eren could see it now; rising up to its greatest height to pluck unsuspecting branches of their leaves. He let the wistful smile cross over his face and leant on the little bar separating them, glancing over every inch of the skeleton. The thrill was rushing back again, the thrill that this once had muscle and tendon and skin and it could have been male or female, colourful or dull, fighter or fleer…

“You always come back to that one.”

Eren froze. “W-well, I heard it’s a prosauropod. That’s pretty interesting.”

That gentle chuckle said it all. “I guess you’re right.”

Eren turned, and there he was. Marco.

He’d clearly not been there long, judging by the lack of a lanyard and scruffier appearance, but he _was_ there, and that was what mattered. Eren’s eyes travelled down, taking in the same too-tight Jurassic Park shirt of before slightly masked by the dusky blue button down on top and washed out blue jeans he was sure to change out of once he got to his office. _If he still had an office_ , that same voice sneered. Eren tried to force that down with the nerves. “Uh – hi,” he said.

Marco’s smile was a little more subdued. “Hey.”

Eren let himself stare for a beat longer before he realised there was a flush travelling up Marco’s cheeks from the scrutiny. “Oh! S-shit, sorry, I uh…” he fumbled for his bag and began to rifle through it, “I came to bring these books-”

“Is that all you came for?”

When Eren looked up, he saw that, to his horror, Marco looked _disappointed._ His gaze was cast down at his feet, the smile he tried so hard to keep on his face only hanging there by a thread, and for Eren the seed of hope began to sprout. It was also accompanied by a great big splash of panic.

“Yes,” was the knee-jerk reaction, but then Eren backtracked. _Had to be brave. Had to have guts. Come on, Jaeger, you can do this._ “No,” he decided. He faltered. “Yes! No! …Yes?” Eren groaned and ran a hand through his hair. “Fuck, I don’t know, do you want there to be something else?” he inquired at the Plateosaurus – partly because he spun around on his heel and ended up staring at it once again.

“Yeah.”

Eren turned around so quickly his neck cricked. “Come again?”

“I said ‘yeah’.” Marco shuffled his weight a little, biting his lip. “Yeah, I hope there’s something else you came for.”

He had to be dreaming. He had to have knocked himself out in his mad dash to get here and this was all some kind of sick illusion. He was going to wake up in his apartment with Armin and Jean fussing over him and Marco gone. He squinted at him. “Are you fucking with me?” he said.

Marco blinked. “W-why would I be fucking with you?”

“B-because…” Eren ran a hand through his hair again. “Because you’re _you_ , Marco! You just…” He gave him an accusatory stare. “I _flirted_ with you!”

Marco chuckled. “I noticed.”

“And you didn’t say anything?!”

“You kept asking about dinosaurs. I thought maybe I was reading you wrong and you just wanted to know about them. It was cute.”

“I thought you were more interested in teaching me about dinosaurs than- wait, cute?” He stopped everything at that. “You think I’m cute?”

Marco gave a bashful grin. “Well, yeah. You’re a little…unorthodox I’ll admit, but you’re cute.” Eren didn’t have time to register that Marco was walking towards him until he was in front of him, close like he had been in the archives, but there was something far more charged about the way he was looking at him this time. Eren swallowed dryly and let his hand slip from his bag. The books could wait. Fuck the books. Don’t fuck the books. Whatever.

Marco let out a short breathy laugh as though he could read Eren’s mind. “You get so flustered, too,” he said, pausing before reaching out and taking one of Eren’s hands in his own. Eren gawped down at them. Marco’s hand was rough and worn from field work and digging, but it was warm and somehow safe. It wasn’t the sort of hand Eren was used to having brushing over his skin. He looked up at just the right time to catch a glimpse of Marco digging his teeth into the swell of his lip. “You’re really cute, Eren. I’m sorry if that makes you uncomfortable, but it’s true.” He hesitated, his teeth digging in deeper despite the smile that came back to his face. “Did you even know anything about dinosaurs before?”

“…not really,” Eren admitted, trying out a loose shrug but pulling it off as a nervous twitch.

Marco snorted. “Do you even like them?”

“I like _you_ ,” was the eloquent offering from Eren’s brain.

Marco let out another light, beautiful chuckle. “Well, I like you too.”

Eren spluttered and fumbled and clawed for the right words that weren’t as lame as ‘thank you’ and not as insane as mindless screaming, but Marco’s gentle laughter made most forms of vocabulary give up and go travelling. He contended himself with just staring at him; at his grin, at his eyes, at his scruffier-than-normal hair. Marco, clearly realising that all was fine and he was not going to be pushed away, started to weave their fingers together as they stood there, gaze gentle and careful. Eren just let it happen, his body hypersensitive to every touch Marco granted it, and when he glanced up from their hands he saw Marco leaning in close. Very close.

Marco kissed him like he touched him; gently, hesitantly, carefully. Eren found himself relaxing in an instant, hands straying up to around Marco’s shoulders but going no further with how soft it was. Marco’s lips brushed Eren’s for what seemed like eons before he pulled back with a broad grin and a bright blush. “Sorry I, uh, had to do it. I’ve been wanting to do it for so long and I guess I just couldn’t help myse-”

Eren couldn’t take it anymore.

He took Marco’s shirt in his hands and pulled him back to his lips. It was meant to be a grand, sweeping, romantic gesture, but it just ended up in their teeth clacking together and Eren hissing out an ‘ow’ that made Marco laugh. But then the lips were back, firmer this time, and Eren let himself fall, with Marco’s hand reaching up to steady him. He’d been teetering for so long, caught on the edge of smiles and words and touches, but now he could freefall without worrying about whether someone would be there to catch him at the bottom. Marco’s kisses were little promises pressed against Eren’s lips, and Eren had a feeling that Marco wasn’t one to go back on such things. When Marco drew him closer so that their bodies were pressed close, Eren wanted to remember the way the little hitch in his gut felt when Marco sighed against him for the first time. It was kind of nice, knowing that Marco’s hesitance and professionalism could fade away to nothing but a simple somebody who needed to kiss and be kissed.

That was when he remembered.

“Alberta?” he blurted out between kisses. He couldn’t forget Alberta.

Marco pulled back, a small chuckle rolling out of his mouth at Eren’s sudden outburst. “And what does the paleontological pride of Canada have to do with kissing you, Eren Jaeger?” he asked, moving his free hand up to rest on the side of Eren’s face.

“Y-you were leaving,” Eren stammered, “to Alberta. For a dig. Armin said.”

For a moment, Marco’s laughter vanished. A little crease appeared between his brows that suggested that a frown was on the way, but to Eren’s surprise, Marco just looked confused.

“I am going to Alberta,” he said. Like it was that easy. Like he could just kiss Eren like that and leave.

Eren couldn’t help the way he visibly wilted. “Oh.”

“For a month.”

“Pardon?”

“For… a month?” he questioned, as though he suddenly wasn’t sure of it himself. “Is…that okay?”

Eren gawped at him, even as they stood there practically in each other’s clothes. “Uh…y-yeah. Shit, yeah, it’s more than okay, it’s brilliant, er…”

“I’ll come back,” Marco said, pressing a small kiss to the corner of Eren’s mouth. “Every weekend. If you’d like me to.”

Eren very much wanted him to, but was only able to communicate this via a series of flustered squeaks as Marco started to plant kisses down his neck.

But even as he stood there, kissing Marco Bodt under the watchful eye of the Plateosaurus and wondering how on earth the world had played out in his favour, he had one solid thought cemented in his mind.

_He was going to **kill** Armin Arlert._


End file.
